Tuesday, March 18, 2008

I swatched...a dish cloth?

Lord knows I have been burned on many occasions by inattention to gauge. Several horrendous blunders come to mind, with perhaps the Thorpe hat that turned into something resembling a giant placenta being the most recent. Not swatching was the problem there, it was an easy enough mistake to identify. And I am trying to learn from my mistakes.When Larissa Brown, i.e. author of the most heavily anticipated knitting book of 2008, (Knitalong! Watch this space for exciting details!) put out a call for dish cloths for an upcoming art project, I knew I had to participate, because I'm sure she's putting together something really smart and intriguing. Her only specification was that the dishcloth had to be a 6 inch square.

Easy, right?

This sent me on a quest for the Perfect Dishcloth. Unfortunately my go-to pattern doesn't have the right dimensions, and since I was a French major, let's just say that the math skillz aren't where they need to be for a redesign. (This is a common leitmotiv for me and my knitting). Luckily there are whole dish cloth websites out there, sort of like Drops, but just with dish cloth patterns. I had no idea! Apparently there is a whole underground community of dish cloth knitters out there. I'm sort of fascinated.After way too much travail, a lot of trial and error, and a ridiculous amount of swatching (Really? For a dish cloth?!) it started to dawn on me that at a certain point I had swatched more for this dish cloth than for the Klaralund, Cobblestone and Drive-Thru COMBINED. So I decided to break out and go free style. Yes, it's my first pattern. Later, Brompton. Step off, Marigold Socks. Bainbridge? Please. There's a new kid in town. I'm calling it 'The Perfect Dishcloth™'. This very intricate pattern will one day be hailed as the greatest dish cloth in the history of the world. Now before you all crash the server trying to download the pattern à la the Fiddlehead Mitten incident, I forgot to write down the pattern before mailing it off, so you're on your own.The dish cloth escapade also earned me accolades from the Phrugal Physicist, who when told that I was knitting a dish cloth exclaimed just a little too enthusiastically "Gee, that's so useful!". "Excuse me???" "Oh, I mean everything you knit is useful err umm for you but, you know what I mean." As Kelly's Aunt Susan said , "No I don't, why don't you extrapolate...".

32 comments:

I would knit a dishcloth if I could ever get past the whole immersing it in water and then getting food particles all over my hard work. Alas, it just icks me out. I, too, miscalculated my Thorpe and wound up with something that would fit a small grapefruit.

On one hand I see the appeal of the knitted dishcloth -- it's fast, it's highly useful, and it might even make doing the dishes more aesthetically appealing -- but, on the other hand, as Kim said, why would you want to take your work and get it dirty and grimy? I'm trying to get over it, if only so I can get rid of the kitchen cotton in my stash.

ooh I contributed to a group afghan once and man, it was the most stressful little square I have ever cranked out. Group gauge is just too damn much pressure. BTW, go to knittingpatterncentral dot com and search on dishcloth - WOW

Oh, I just spent quite a bit of time checking out that dishcloth website. It's useful in another way: you can try out a stitch pattern to determine if you want to make an entire sweater out of it! As Sophie, I'd love to see the WS of your lavette :) I think it's reversible, right?

My first knitting project ever was a dishcloth and I still have it and use it. Ah...the memories or learning to knit! There are actually several dishcloth groups on Ravelry, and I think I might have seen an anti-discloth group as well...Just checked and yes there is...it's called "I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a DPN than knit a dishcloth".

Lovely, practical dishcloths! My most recent group project really taught me an important lesson in gauge. I like using handknit dishcloths, just not making them. That cotton just ruins my wrists and hands.